


Supernova

by masquerade97



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode: s11e18 Hell's Angel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:21:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6512545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masquerade97/pseuds/masquerade97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What was going on in Cas' mind before and through 11x18. Based on the kitchen in the bunker apparently having great reception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Supernova

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a conversation with [shixpe](http://shixpe.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. I blame her for this.

When Cas first said yes to Lucifer, the arrangement had been fairly simple. Castiel, as the vessel, retreated to his subconscious so Lucifer could use his body. He had expected Lucifer to torment him, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that Lucifer didn’t seem to care much about what happened to him, so long as he stayed out of the way.

The arrangement worked for Cas. He didn’t want to have to think about anything, or do anything. He liked the bunker though (it felt like home at this point), and so he went there, to his old room. It looked just as he’d left it, and he’d reclined on his bed to watch bad daytime TV.

Distraction was what he was going for; he didn’t want to think about anything until the whole business with Amara was done. He assumed his brother would let him know when that was, but he didn’t think he’d care if Lucifer just kept walking around with his meat suit. For the moment, though, he was content to stare at a screen and let his mind go numb and not have to worry about everything he’d done. After all, serving as Lucifer’s vessel was a big enough undertaking that he was sure that when Lucifer had defeated the Darkness, Cas would finally have made up for all he had done in the past few years.

Passage of time was hard to measure in this space, but after some time Cas felt himself growing restless from sitting too long, and annoyed from having to constantly readjust the TV so the machine would pick up something other than static.

Cas took to wandering the bunker, trying the TV in several rooms to find the one with the best signal.

He was thankful for the silence while he was trapped here; he didn’t think he could stand to hear Angel Radio (who knew what was going on with his brothers and sisters) and hearing prayers would just be painful.

For some reason, the kitchen had the best reception. Sure, the TV would still cut out from time to time, but it was far less frequent than in other rooms. However, Cas had at first avoided using the kitchen to watch his shows; the reception didn’t seem limited to television – he could hear Angel Radio intermittently, and the occasional blanket prayer made its way through.

There was one day when Cas was passing through the kitchen, the TV held on his arms in front of him, when he heard a familiar voice floating through his mind.

_Hey, Cas. Haven’t heard from you in a couple days. I know it was tough in the cage with Lucifer, but Sammy and I can use all the help we can get._

Dean. Cas smiled at the voice, at its familiarity. He missed Dean, but the help Dean needed would come from Lucifer, not him. He kept walking.

Sometime later – maybe hours, maybe days – Cas was wandering back through the kitchen when Dean’s voice came through again, and Cas had seemingly walked in in the middle of the prayer.

_-if you ever found anything, we need to know._

Interesting. Maybe Lucifer had had a lead and let the boys know. That was nice of him.

Eventually, Cas had to settle in the kitchen. He was too annoyed with moving, and he’d decided he could live with the prayers; it was nice to know that Dean still talked to him sometimes. And another voice in such a large empty place was comforting to some degree. Especially Dean’s voice.

_Cas, you want to check in? It’s been a few days, and you were a little weird at the bunker the other day._

_Castiel, Sam and I have jack shit, so if you’ve found anything useful, now would be the time to speak up._

_Alright Cas, you need to pick up. Where the hell are you?_

Cas found it interesting that Dean seemed to be the only one who spoke to him. He tuned the prayers out when he could, but even buried this far in his unconscious mind, he could feel a current of longing under the prayers, and it still pulled at him, let him know where Dean was. ‘Dean’s better off now,’ Cas thought to himself. ‘Lucifer can help with Amara. I can’t.’

As much as Cas tried to forget the prayers he heard, there was one that stuck out to him.

_Cas, you stupid sonofabitch, you didn’t need to say yes to Lucifer. We would have found another way. We always find another way._

Cas shook his head when he heard that because, yes, he did have to say yes to Lucifer. Lucifer was their only way out. Cas had thought he had used up his last shred of usefulness, but serving as Lucifer’s vessel was his way to redeem himself, to be useful again. And when Amara was defeated, Sam and Dean would know that he had been right in saying yes to Lucifer. It was the only way.

And then he heard words, words with power, words that were calling to him, painfully forcing him back to the front of his mind.

“ _Castiel! Show yourself!_ ”

Cas recognized the voice just before he was blinking and squinting at the unfamiliar surroundings. Holy fire, sigils, Sam, Crowley. Dean. Why did Dean look like that, angry and scared and…hopeful?

“Dean?” Cas asked, confused. And he saw Dean’s features soften, and the voice he spoke with was much softer than it had been just a moment ago. Cas tried to pay attention to the words, but he couldn’t. Lucifer had started to claw at his consciousness again, and it took all his strength to get just another second of being present with Dean.

And then he was back in the kitchen in the bunker, watching the TV.

_Castiel! Show yourself!_

Cas could hear the words, but they were muffled, and Cas shrugged, sure he had simply imagined what he had just seen, and he banged on the TV and readjusted the rabbit ears when the picture started to go fuzzy.

And then Crowley was in his mind, talking to him. Cas wasn’t paying much attention. It was so much easier to just watch his TV. But then he asked if he had, in fact, seen Dean just a moment before.

“ _Yes_ ,” Crowley said, exasperated, as if trying to reason with a stubborn child.

“And he wants me to expel Lucifer?” Cas asked, grasping at what he thought he’d heard.

“Yes.”

Cas smiled at the thought that he _had_ seen Dean a moment before. Maybe he’d been more lonely than he thought. Maybe Lucifer wasn’t working out like he had planned. But that was a maybe, and why would he trust Crowley anyway. Besides, there was Lucifer, threatening Crowley. And then they were fighting. Cas wished they would go away and let him watch his show in peace. Someone, he wasn’t sure who, was thrown across the counter on which the TV was perched, and Cas was quick to move the TV out of the way so it wouldn’t be knocked over. “You guys are gonna break something,” he said blankly. If they would just leave, then he could be left in peace.

And then the sound of Latin chanting worked its way into the kitchen, and Crowley was smoking out of the kitchen, out of the vessel.

Lucifer stayed for another moment, surveying Cas. Cas could feel Luci’s eyes sizing him up, but he didn’t care. Crowley was gone, the fighting had stopped, and he could watch his TV in peace. Lucifer was gone a second later.

_Cas?_

Well that was soon. Where had Lucifer gone that Dean was _already_ praying to Cas.

_Cas!_

The name was repeated, over and over, and Cas could feel the tugging in his gut that meant that there was longing under the words. And for the first time in – Days? Weeks? Months? Cas wasn’t sure – he listened to what the voice was saying, how it was saying it.

 _Castiel, we’ll get you out of this_.

Out of this? Cas felt like he’d been dragged to the present moment by the back of his neck. What _had_ been going on? Maybe he _should_ expel Lucifer after all. But Lucifer was their only hope against Amara. Wasn’t he?

Cas stood, though he didn’t know where he planned on going.

Before Cas could think of what might be going on, the lights in the bunker flickered. And that was weird. In all his time there, nothing had changed except what he himself changed. Lucifer would never let anything change, lest Castiel become curious as to what was going on outside.

No, something was wrong. And even this far down, Cas could feel pain start to boil inside him.

_Cas, just hang on. Sam and I are going to fix this._

Suddenly the kitchen was pitch black. Cas was aware of a vast expanse of nothingness around him. He swiped in front of him to find the counter and television missing.

Blank.

Cas felt panic start to grip him as the pain in his core intensified. He doubled over as the room around him started to glow white, and he could make out the edges of his brother’s consciousness where Lucifer couldn’t keep a hold.

_Just hang in there Cas. Sammy and I will come up with something. I’m sorry Cas. I’ll find a way to fix this. I promise._

A promise. Cas grabbed onto it as hard as he could and held it close to his heart. Dean was promising to fix this. Cas still wasn’t sure what _this_ was, but his brother’s screams started to echo in his head as pain enveloped him.

Dean promised to get him out. Cas believed him. Or at least, he believed Dean would try. Maybe that was enough.

Cas remembered, a few years ago, an instance where he was expelled from his vessel. Dean had found Jimmy, and later on, Dean had said Jimmy told him being possessed by an Angel was like being chained to a comet. And maybe now he could understand what Jimmy meant by that, because he felt as if he were trapped in the middle of a star gone supernova.


End file.
